As Afghan and foreign troops continue to battle the Taliban in the plains and hills of Afghanistan, another battle is being waged – and lost – in the country's legislature. The Taliban don't need to recapture Kabul for their puritan and parochial values to recapture the public stage. Afghan lawmakers – part and parcel of the new, democratic government installed since the toppling of the Taliban in 2001 – are edging towards reintroducing strict bans on supposedly un-Islamic cultural forms. After six years of uncertainty, corruption, carnage and waning confidence, Afghanistan may be sliding right back to where it didn't want to be.
Parliamentarians this week are considering a law "to ban makeup, men's jeans, long hair and couples talking in public". The measure comes fast on the heels of an earlier move to suspend the broadcast of popular Indian soap operas that have dominated Afghan airwaves and TV screens since the opening of the media in 2001. Following a consultation with the Council of Clerics – the country's top body of ulema – Abdul Karim Khurram, the minister for information and culture, deemed the serials to be out of sync with "Afghan religion and culture" and issued a deadline for private TV channels to cut the programmes' transmission. So much for the tired notion that the Muslim world lives in perpetual fear of western culture – in Afghanistan's case, it's Bollywood that's the bigger bogeyman.
No matter who faces the censor's wrath, this creeping religiosity wasn't in the script for Afghanistan when it ushered in the government of Hamid Karzai, an elegant and erudite scholar, a man of the world. At the time of the 2001 invasion, the western media was awash with horror stories of the Taliban's rule, of its irredentist Islam and its appalling treatment of women. Yet, as many rights organisations have observed, the condition of women has only improved marginally in the subsequent years, with unequal access to education and domestic abuse still endemic in much of the country. Now, liberal gains are set to be rolled back. What has happened to allow the return of the mores of the Taliban?
An abiding divide remains between the culture of Afghanistan's cities and their hinterland, and more strikingly, between Kabul and the rest of the country. The capital is home to bustling markets peddling Indian DVDs and tapes to a citizenry hungry for modern entertainment. While the vulnerable, unlettered condition of women persists in the provinces, it is only in Kabul where, according to MP Soona Niloofar, "changes in women's lives have occurred".
It's not surprising then that one of the chief proponents of the bans is Haji Ahmad Shah Khan Achakzai, an MP from the former Taliban heartland of Kandahar province. "Kabul has seen a wave of liberal, unwelcome influences of late," he said with rustic certainty. "There are women dressed immodestly, prostitution can be found openly and even alcohol is available on the market. Our job is to protect the Afghan people from being exposed to this un-Islamic way of life and poor morals."
The capital is not simply a cultural island, but a political one. Outside of the centre, the Karzai government's grip of the provinces is tenuous at best, limited by the growing strength of the Taliban and the persistent, centrifugal ambitions of the many warlords that consolidated control over bits of the country after 2001.
One of the few ways Kabul can exercise authority and influence beyond its outskirts is through compromise. Karzai has long supported attempts to open channels of dialogue and negotiation with the insurgent Taliban. So too has his government pushed through controversial amnesty laws that shelter war criminals from prosecution and trial in order to maintain the participation of all the country's power-brokers. Dissenting, liberal parliamentarians – like the outspoken, ostracised MP Malalai Joya – and human rights perspectives have been summarily squeezed out.
The puritan bans must be seen in this light, as part of a strategy of state-building that can only move in increments, building consent and minimising causes of friction between warring parties. Re-establishing elements of a stricter Islamist code may tempt the more moderate factions of the Taliban into negotiations, weakening an insurgency that continues to paralyse Afghan life and rebuilding. It is an uncomfortable paradox in Afghanistan that what may be best for an open society isn't always best for a peaceful one.